(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in ginning. More specifically the invention involves differential ginning by feeding at least a substantial portion of material to be ginned to a first section of a sectioned gin, conveying the material successively from section to section, and separately removing lint from each section of the gin.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Removing the fibers from the cottonseed is referred to as ginning and the majority of cotton ginning performed in the U.S. today is accomplished by saw-type gin stands. The principle for saw-ginning has not changed appreciably since it was patented by Eli Whitney in 1794. Saw-ginning removes almost all of the fibers from the seed and these fibers are of varying length. Fiber length is determined genetically but can be influenced by weather, insects, nutrients, as well as the ginning process. It is widely known that fibers on cottonseeds are of various lengths and quality and that mechanically removing them results in the breakage of some of these fibers. However, a fiber length array of mechanically ginned cotton shows that there are still differences in the length of the ginned fibers. It is desirable to eliminate the breaking of fibers and to produce the longest possible fiber from the seed. It is also desirable to have the fibers to be of uniform length throughout the packaged bale.
Two previous inventors have obtained patents to remove fibers of different lengths (differential ginning) from seed cotton. U.S. Pat. No. 1,118,412 to J. W. Graves states that by subjecting seed cotton to different mechanical actions, fibers of different lengths and character are obtained. U.S. Pat. No. 1,862,884 to W. R. Collier states that when seed cotton is fed to the saw gang along a path parallel to the rotating axis of the saws, longer fibers are removed from the seed before the shorter fibers are removed. However, these two inventions are fairly radical in their principle and design. By contrast the present invention avoids such radical designs, and provides such differential ginning by means of readily performed modifications to conventional gins, such as the conventional gin shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,744,293 to V. A. Johnson.
(3) Summary
It is the primary object of my invention to provide highly advantageous differential ginning by means of readily performed modifications to conventional ginning, while avoiding the radical designs of the differential ginning of the prior art. Clearly it is of great economic advantage to provide such differential ginning by modifying conventional ginning, rather than resorting to such radically different gin designs.
It is also an object of the invention to produce by such differential ginning separate portions of lint, the properties of the lint differing from portion to portion, as for example by including a first lint portion containing a relatively high proportion of long fibers, having fewer short fibers and having a lower coefficient of variation, then the other fiber portion(s).
I have surprisingly discovered that these and other objects may be accomplished by modifying a conventional saw type gin to: (1) convey material to be ginned successively to each of at least two saw sections for ginning in each saw section; (2) remove lint from each saw section; and (3) keep substantially separate the lint removed from each saw section, and thereby provide separate portions of lint.